Finished Pics! Dreadnought acoustic (guitar) for me?

[SpondonBassed]

5 minutes ago, Zalastar said:

Congrats, now will your next build be a mini bass for the little one?

@Zalastar

I think you've confused me with Andy mate.

[TheGreek]

11 minutes ago, Si600 said:

Naming the baby after a bass?

"Dreadnought" for a little girl?? Not so sure the mother will agree to that...😆😆

[Zalastar]

1 minute ago, SpondonBassed said:

I think you've confused me with Andy mate.

Oops, that's because I quoted the quote 

Anyway congrats to Andy too 

[SpondonBassed]

Gita?

[Andyjr1515]

Thanks folks. I think it is much more likely that I will used as a threat - Daughter: "If you don't eat your greens, I will ask Granddaddy to play bass at you again. And you KNOW how horrible that is!"

[TheGreek]

Granddad duties getting in the way of building?

Don't worry - nobody begrudges you that. Enjoy it before they become teenagers.

[Andyjr1515]

Temporarily back from grandparenting so thought I should try and crack on.

The swift logo is easier done before I cut out the headstock shape:

 

Also popped a swift onto the heel cap.  Here the heel cap is being glued at the same time as a couple of wing blocks for the headstock:

The heel cap looks like this:

 

And a quick mock up with the cut out headstock plate:

 

I've never tried it before, but I'm going to see if I can bend some purfling all the way round the headstock to just add a finishing touch.  I'll try that tomorrow...

[Andyjr1515]

What is nice about building for yourself is that you can try new things (well, new to me) without experimenting on someone else's build.

Never tried binding a headstock plate before but I reckon this works pretty well:

I cut and filed the neck fairly closely so there's no chance of accidentally taking off the binding when cutting the neck headstock outline:

...and ready to glue.

[Andyjr1515]

Yup  - happy with that:

 

What with all the dashing up to Aberdeen and such, have only just ordered the trussrod so can't fit the fretboard and carve the neck yet.  Still, plenty more to do in the meantime - not least the final sanding and finishing on the body, which needs to be done in any case before the neck and bridge can be fitted.

As always, by the way, thanks for the great feedback

 

[TheGreek]

You know what they say....

"...you can never have too many clamps."  

[SpondonBassed]

Perflict!

[Norris]

Lovely job.

It must be a lot easier binding a flat plate. When I did my tele I had to pre-cut the rebate and glue it on before binding

[Andyjr1515]

5 hours ago, Norris said:

Lovely job.

It must be a lot easier binding a flat plate. When I did my tele I had to pre-cut the rebate and glue it on before binding

Yes - it was based on your experience that I opted to try it the other way round 

[Andyjr1515]

It's going to be a disturbed weekend again so I have tried to get some more of the major steps sorted in the last couple of days.

I have started the finishing process on the body.  I'm a bit unconventional in that, regardless of what I will eventually finish it with, I 'grain fill' and seal using a tru-oil slurry-and-wipe approach.

Here's the back and sides after the first application:

 

While that was drying, I carried on with the neck fitting.  It is going to be bolt-on mortice and tenon, using captive nuts.  This all has to be very accurate and square:

 

When screwing in the inserts, not only do they have to be very square to the hole, but - from bitter experience - I also support the sides to avoid the process splitting the wood:

 

This means we have a self-supporting neck that can be tightened fully against the body...

...for the next somewhat iterative process of checking and adjusting the neck angle on both planes.  By the way, note at the joint that the inside is scooped away so that the only contact is at the sides of the heel.

 

First check is whether the neck angle to bridge is correct:

This is, happily, exactly where I need it to be - the level from the fretboard is just touching the top of the bridge - the bone saddle will provide the string action height

Then I have to check the alignment of the neck:

Not so good.  So I need to shave a touch off the base side of the heel - while not affecting the neck angle and maintaining a good heel to body joint.  This will have to wait until next week 

[Christine]

Sorry I’m not keeping up, we’re on holiday and I struggle looking at anything on my phone, I’ll have a big catch up when I’m back Grandad

[Andyjr1515]

Back home after another 16 hours driving (the things we do...!) and back to a bit of normality for a couple of weeks.  

On the critical path is gluing the fretboard - but I can't do that until the neck is absolutely spot on in all planes.  So out came a huge array of hand tools to try to create a 1.4 degree angle on the heel in one plane to straighten the neck without affecting the other plane, affecting the neck angle and string action height.

Eventually got there.  It lines up:

And - using a long thin strip of abrasive cloth the floss the joint, I have a secure and even contact between the heel and the body, confirmed by transfer of chalk (seen in the above picture) from one to the other when the two are assembled.

A bit more tweaking and checking, then the trussrod can be fitted and fretboard glued

 

[Andyjr1515]

Spent a bit of time double checking lengths and positions of the fretboard, and also fitted the trussrod ready for fixing the fretboard to the neck.

One job needed was to cut the fretboard to length.  The pickup system I am installing is the Shadow Doubleplay

As well as a piezo under the saddle, it has a mini magnetic pickup that fits at the end of the fretboard.  It is the same system I fitted to Chris's build in 2015 shown here:

As you can see, the fretboard has to be cut to the correct length to fit the magnetic p/up at the end.

That cut, it was time to glue the fretboard!  And yes, @TheGreek - you can NEVER have too many clamps! 

 

[Andyjr1515]

Started the neck carve.  

It will probably take the rest of the day off and on but the bulk is removed:

 

Other than checking the neck thickness with some calipers, I'm carving this one pretty much entirely by feel - sitting in a chair, holding it like a back-to-front cello and using a variety of tools including spokeshave, cabinet scrapers and microplanes.

I often tweak the shape in the same way once the guitar is fully finished and strung up, just using a cabinet scraper and finishing off with sandpaper, followed by a quick reapplication of tru-oil slurry and buff.

 

[SpondonBassed]

3 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Started the neck carve.  

It will probably take the rest of the day off and on but the bulk is removed:

 

Other than checking the neck thickness with some calipers, I'm carving this one pretty much entirely by feel - sitting in a chair, holding it like a back-to-front cello and using a variety of tools including spokeshave, cabinet scrapers and microplanes.

I often tweak the shape in the same way once the guitar is fully finished and strung up, just using a cabinet scraper and finishing off with sandpaper, followed by a quick reapplication of tru-oil slurry and buff.

 

What are your feelings regarding asymmetric neck profiles?

[Andyjr1515]

9 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

What are your feelings regarding asymmetric neck profiles?

I think they suit some people. 

I personally don't feel the need.  I always carve necks for guitars and basses intended for my own use to a soft-ish 'V'.  That gives me a feeling of a very slim neck when moving up and down the board, but a comfortable thickness when using barre chords and the like.

[cheddatom]

Brilliant work! Really enjoying this thread

[Andyjr1515]

I'll bet you all thought I'd gone to that great gig venue in the sky!!

I'm in the middle of the finishing process for the body so there's not a huge amount to see at the moment.  I still try various things in terms of acoustic guitar finishes - some work and some don't.  When this is done, I'll run through what I have used and also the other things I've used in the past.

This is how it's looking at the moment with probably 3-4 coats more to do:

It's only when the finish is done and set that the neck and bridge can be fitted...all a bit back to front in many ways, but I reckon the whole thing will be finished by the end of next week  

[honza992]

Can't wait for the finishing de-brief 😀

It's amazing that man-on-the-moon is almost half a century old, but there's still no recognized method of sealing, protecting and enhancing the grain of a piece of wood.... Andy, you're doing great work. 

[Andyjr1515]

Haven't forgotten about the finishing debrief, but just a quick update of ongoing progress.  The finish has maybe 2 coats more to do.  There's a lot of waiting around, though, when the varnish is dry enough to touch and handle but not dry enough to take the next coat.  So in that time I've started on some of the other jobs.

The bridge goes on last (you have to scrape away the finish that you've just spent weeks putting on!) but needs to be shaped to match the spheroidal shape of the top.  This is where the old 'engineers blue' approach comes in - except you use blackboard chalk.  

I put a wide strip of easy peel masking tape where the bridge will go and gave it a liberal coating of chalk.  Then placed the bridge on top and moved it around a couple of mm.  Hey presto - the high spots:

Then all you do is scrape where the chalk is and repeat (multiple times).  Here it is after the first scraping:

So same m.o. - now scrape these areas away.  After about 8 iterations, I am getting there:

So I know now that most of the area is making good contact.  Just a final bit of tidying up and it will be ready to fit as soon as the final coats of finish have been applied.

The colour won't change much now - it will just get glossier.  Here's where we are at in overall look so far:

So - all being well - a few more days of finish coats and drying and then I can move towards final steps

 

[Andyjr1515]

With my varnish method - which is a bit of a compromise due to lack of facilities, knowledge and skills - I get to the point where I have to say 'OK - Stop there...that's close enough'.  The reason is that, too often, if I 'just give it one last coat' it invariably makes things a lot worse rather than making what is basically OK into something a bit closer to perfect.

And for this - especially as it is a bitsa build for my own use - I've got to the 'OK - Stop there...that's close enough!'

Having no spray facilities or equipment, I basically wipe or brush the finishes.  Anyway, here is the body prior to fully hardening and final polishing:

It doesn't bear very close examination but, for the overall look, it looks OK at the cursory level.

The next bit is probably only of interest to those who commented about their own trails and tribulations of finishing  

I promised I would run through some of the finishing trials and tribulations.  I'll split that into 4 aspects: top vs back&sides; prep vs finish coat.

AS ALWAYS, THIS IS JUST HOW I DO IT, NOT HOW IT SHOULD BE DONE!   

Preparation (post finish-sanding):

Back and sides: I use tru-oil slurry and wipe to seal and grain-fill all in one go.  Works a treat, even filling the horrendous tear-out I had at the back.  Couple of sessions morning, left to dry between each, then sand the following day and it's usually ready to take the gloss.

Top:  Tru-oil would do the job used just like for the back and sides above, but for spruce and maple it does tend to give a reddish hue and so, certainly for an acoustic top, I don't use that method.  Last acoustic, I used an old classical guitar method of egg white.  Yes - standard egg white, brushed on, left to dry, sanded off.  Maybe repeat, but basically then ready to varnish.  Didn't do that this time...and wish I had.  What I did try was Chestnut Melamine.  Very stinky.  Tough and no discolouration beyond the darkening of the dampened spruce.  But I couldn't sand it down without it becoming a little patchy (probably not enough coats) so basically sanded it off the surface and used that which has soaked in just as a sanding sealer.  NEXT TIME - I'm going to use egg white again.  In retrospect, it did the job perfectly well.

Finish Varnish:

 Here, my big restriction is that I do not have the facilities to spray and therefore I am restricted to wipe-on or brush-on finish techniques.  Those of you who have followed previous threads will know that my preferred finish for a full-gloss is good old Ronseal Hardglaze Polyurethane Varnish. 

I used to do this exclusively wipe-on but since Ronseal did a formulation change to lower the volatiles, I've found that thinning the varnish anywhere near what I would do for wipe-on gives major problems and that less thinning and using an artist's fan brush is the best alternative:

 

Method is simple:

I thin the varnish down with about 5% white spirits (this is WAY different to my wipe-on with the original Ronseal formula which could take up to 50% thinning!)

I brush it on - not stopping and ensuring each strip is merged into the previous one (that will already be stiffening), laying off gently with the brush at each strip to even out any ripples or air bubbles

After drying, I use micro-web (1800 to 4000 ish) used wet and then recoat once totally dry and cleaned with a good quality tack cloth (I use a microfibre cloth designed for cleaning windows)

Now - the trouble is with the new Ronseal formulation is that for subsequent coats, the varnish has more adhesion to itself than it does to the previous dried coat of varnish.  This means that it parts, like the Red Sea parted for Moses, leaving what looks like deep brush marks!  (I have a photo somewhere I'll try to find).  The answer is, of course, to sand and give it a key.  But then the 'final' coat shows the dull patches of the sanded substrate (even with 2000+ grit).  So you do another coat without sanding.  Then it creeps again. Etc Etc Etc

And then every now and again, it is almost OK.

And that's where I STOP.  Which is where I started this post 

I keep meaning to contact Ronseal - they MUST have other people that have the same issue!  And it is 2018.  To echo @honza992 's earlier comment - can it really be THAT difficult to make gloss varnish that can be applied successfully and works?

 

But why, I hear you ask, does Andyjr1515 use old fashioned Ronseal polyurethane gloss rather than a modern water-based varnish anyway?

 

Well - this is Ronseal Hardglaze:

And this is the exact same wood, prepared in the exact same way...but finished with one of the better water-based gloss varnishes, Osmo Polyx Gloss:

 

It's nice enough - but it ain't the same!

 

Edited September 28, 2018 by Andyjr1515